So far in February and only one WIP

I have read about both process and product knitters and I guess I find it hard to pin one or the other term upon myself. I think I'm one of those people who fits in right in the middle. I really enjoy the process of knitting, or crocheting for that matter, if I enjoy the project, but I also enjoy the end result. This is why it's almost unheard of for me to have more than one WIP. So far, this year, I have made the following:

January:

Central park hoodie (turned out way too big, I'll post a pic later...and explain)
Beanie for brother
garter stitch scarf for Rochelle
Sweet Pea Shawl for Zuzy
Flower afghan for Amber
February:
Two berets
Two hats to match twin's garter stitch sweaters, pics to follow
Two garter stitch sweaters for twins
Matching scarves for the twins sweaters, pics to follow

WIP: Cabled cardigan (I am making this one up )

Beret from Interweave Crochet

My mom asked me to make her a beret and I found a pattern in the Winter 08 issue of Interweave crochet. The pattern itself was a bit of a disappointment, because I had to tweak it to make it way less baggy. The twins said it looked like a clown hat the first time around. But the eventual end results were good; I liked it so much, I decided to make my sister Rochelle a blue one with some more of that blue baby yarn. The blue one turned out really well, now I know a really good use for baby yarn.

Fancy girls garter stitch jackets

These are combo crochet/knit sweaters which I made up. I used paton's shetland chunky (about 4.5 for each sweater), 10.5 circular needles and one ball of paton's eylash yarn for the purple one and one ball of lion brand fun fur for the blue one. These were so loved by my family that my little sister, Alexis, has requested one in pink with purple trim for her b-day, which is perfect because I have four balls of rose lion brand boucle in my stash and plenty more of that purple eyelash yarn, and my mom wants one for her b-day. The good news, these only take about a week to make.

Sweet Pea Shawl for Zuzy

I decided to make my sister in law Zuzy something for xmas since she always makes me things. I had this baby blue baby yarn, which must have been about eight or nine years old and since my goal is to work through my stash as much as possible by June, I went for it. I have to say that in the future, I'd spring for some fancy yarn that is more suited for a shawl. This shawl took me a couple of days to make, it is pretty easy once you get the rhythm of the pattern. Here it is:

garter stitch scarf for Rochelle

I never would have thought a garter stitch scarf, so simple to make, could look so cool. But one day a student of mine came to class wearing one. She is always wearing the most delicious scarves, I think her grandmother makes them for her, and she keeps asking me to crochet her a doll, maybe I will one day, we'll see.

Afghan for Marianne

I made this for my daughter Marianne for x-mas. I used patons shetland chunky which is really warm. Got the pattern here http://www.lionbrand.com/patterns/chs-borderPatternBlanket.html?noImages=

Flower Afghan for Amber's Birthday

So, it all started with a trip to visit my betrothed... I promised myself I wouldn't bring any yarn with me so we could spend lots of time together. Well, the truth is, I'm an addict. And so I realized I had left some yarn at his house the last time I was visiting because I had too much stuff to take back home. It didn't take too long for him to drive me to the fabric store to get a set of crochet needles. Since I only had one ball of Caron simply soft in orchid, I decided to make a scarf. I found this pattern online. http://www.craftyarncouncil.com/projects/nov04_redscarf.html
And I made the scarf without the fringe. Since my little sister Amber's birthday was two weeks away I asked my step mom what she thought. She told me to make a blanket. So I went back to the store and bought more yarn and continued the pattern. My mom always taught me to improvise. Since the afghan wasn't quite long enough, I made some rows of the patten on each end to make it longer. I decided against fringe, since I thought it might not be as easy to machine wash, and frankly, I ran out of yarn. This is six balls. It really is a pretty flower crochet pattern. And believe it or not it only took me a week (yes I have two kids and a full time job!)

Diary of Projects

The Yarn Harlot mentioned in her book that some people keep diaries of their projects. I'm not quite the anal type person, and in all honesty, I'd probably lose a book, but why not an electronic diary? So here it goes. January's projects....